Delaying South Australia’s ‘Voice’ Aimed at Protecting Proposed Change to Australia’s Constitution: Think Tank

Premier Peter Malinauskas attends a jobs and skills summit at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia on Sep. 1, 2022. Martin Ollman/Getty Images

South Australia’s decision to delay its Voice to Parliament is a “cynical ploy” to stop the public from understanding the full implications of changing the country’s Constitution, says the Institute of Public Affairs.

The free-market think tank’s comments come after South Australia’s Labor government announced it would delay elections for its state-level First Nations Voice until March 16, 2024, to avoid “confusion” with the federal proposal. The original date for voting was set on Sept. 9, 2023.

“The clear advice I’ve received from both the Electoral Commissioner and the Commissioner for First Nations Voice is that the work being done in South Australia is being overshadowed by the debate occurring at a national level around both the ‘Yes’ and the ‘No’ referendum campaigns,” said SA’s Aboriginal Affairs Minister Kyam Maher, in a statement.

“By allowing for more time, we’re giving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in South Australia the opportunity to fully understand how they can get involved and take the time to campaign, with distance from the discussion about the national Voice,” he added.

SA has pushed ahead with its own version of The Voice in February, but its latest decision comes as public polling for the national Voice reveals declining support for the proposal, which will see the Australian Constitution changed to embed a special Indigenous advisory body into the Parliament.

Big crowds are seen outside South Australia’s parliament in Adelaide, Australia, on March 26, 2023. AAP Image/Matt Turner

Hiding the ‘Massive Scope’ of The Voice: Think Tank

Daniel Wild, executive director of the Institute of Public Affairs, said the move was not about avoiding “confusion” but to hide the “massive scope and operation” of an Indigenous Voice from public scrutiny.

“How can Australians have any faith in the Canberra Voice to Parliament proposal when even state governments are taking extraordinary measures, including delaying the commencement of laws, to prevent them from witnessing the consequences of such ideas?” Wild said in a statement to The Epoch Times.

“There is a clear tension between the local state Voice, which is in legislation only, and the Canberra-based national voice, which would be permanently embedded in the Constitution and therefore cannot be changed or removed.”

He said the think tank had undertaken further research that pointed to ongoing concerns that The Voice proposals will do little to improve the lives of Indigenous communities.

Later this year, Australians will go to the polls to vote for a national referendum to decide whether to alter the Constitution to change its preamble to recognise Indigenous peoples and to also set up an advisory body to Parliament.

Walpiri community members wait to meet coroner Elisabeth Armitage at the local police station in the outback community of Yuendumu, northwest of Alice Springs, Australia, on Nov. 15, 2022. AAP Image/Aaron Bunch

This almost-permanent advisory body would have the power to make “representations” to the executive and legislative arms of government on all matters deemed relevant to Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders.

Advocates see The Voice as the latest advancement in reconciliation and dealing with chronic issues in Indigenous communities, such as unemployment, domestic violence, alcoholism, youth crime, and welfare dependency.

SA Model Reveals Issues With ‘The Voice’

Under the SA model, the state will be divided into a number of regions—currently six, but this can be changed by the government—to elect a “Local First Nations Voice.” These bodies are capable of being sued, holding property, and are independent of the government.

Indigenous individuals in each Local First Nations Voice must elect two presiding members (of differing genders). Together, all local members will sit on a “State First Nations Voice.”

The state-level body will have the power to present the views of Indigenous people to the “South Australian Parliament and the South Australian Government and other bodies.”

Further, at the “discretion” of the State First Nations Voice, the body can “engage with and provide advice” to other levels of government on policies that “relate to matters of interest to First Nations people.”

Yet Senator Price pointed to loopholes that draft legislation for the SA model revealed.

“I think it is utterly ridiculous that it has been left open for individuals to declare their Aboriginality. Just based on that, the fact that a citizen of South Australia can write a statutory declaration and claim to be Indigenous is deeply concerning,” she told reporters.

“You will see in South Australia a dramatic increase in the number of Indigenous people within its population, no doubt because of that particular model.”

The federal version of The Voice has managed to avoid such scrutiny so far because the Labor government will decide on the exact model only after Australians vote nationally on whether to go ahead with the proposal—a situation that has been the focus of criticism from the opposition and No advocates.

“The legal uncertainty and ambiguity here are quite remarkable, and to change the Constitution this way is without precedent,” Opposition Leader Peter Dutton told reporters.